AN: Just one more chapter planned after today's. Please let me know how you like it, and thanks for reading. DDD
Cold air engulfed Hermione as she and Charlie left her flat on Christmas night. They had apparated outdoors, somewhere dark that smelled of earth and damp wood. "We're in the Forbidden Forest, at school," she said. "That's allowed because it's not a guess."
Charlie smirked, letting go of her waist and lighting his wand. "Alright then. We're need a place that has been exposed to dragon's breath that's never been purged in order to test the detecting powder. And this spot of woods is where we set up the dragon pens when we brought them here for the tournament years ago. The forest binds tightly to magical traces like that, and so I reckon this is a good place."
He stood away from her and she acted like a patient person might, tucking her hands into her pockets, not keen on getting the powder on them and being lit up like a shop display.
Without another word, Charlie doused the light of his wand. In the darkness, there was the sound of a vial being uncorked, and then the delicate patter of something very light falling into the dry winter undergrowth, coating the hoary old bushes and the ancient tree trunks. All the foliage seemed to breathe in unison before it began to glow with a gentle, steady greeness.
"Well done, Charlie," Hermione cooed. "It works perfectly. And it turned out to be beautiful too, almost like fairy magic."
"Fairies? It's much better than that," Charlie said, happiness stealing into his voice again. "It's dragon magic."
In the soft green light, she faced Charlie's profile. At the time, the Triwizard Tournament was by far the most ambitious assignment of his career, testing all of his skill and nerve. Even with underaged Harry complicating the mix, the dragon task had still come off alright. Quite the achievement for a young dragonologist.
Hermione saw the memory of it all in his face - how badly Charlie had wanted to do well, how nervously he had begun the task and how triumphantly it had ended.
She reached for his hand. "You seemed completely grown up to us when you brought the dragons here. But you were still so young. Just a few years older than Viktor."
He sniffed at the recollection. "Viktor Krum. He fancied you, didn't he?"
"You remember that?"
Charlie shrugged. "I remember Ronnie being jealous as anything when Krum turned up at Bill's wedding looking to romance you."
Hermione groaned and swung their joined hands between them. "Viktor is not known for his subtlety."
Charlie smiled at their hands. "It was illuminating for me, really. Watching Krum fawning over Ronnie's little crush. I admit at first I wondered what he was playing at - "
Hermione dropped Charlie's hands, laughing and punching lightly at his bicep.
"No, it was good for me to wonder," Charlie explained, rubbing his arm. "It made me pay attention, get curious about you as a woman. You weren't just a cute and keen schoolgirl anymore. Watching you carrying yourself around the wedding, so grown up and lovely, gracious and helpful even while conniving stars knew what with Potter, bent on saving the world. And - well, it was clear there was nothing wrong with Krum. He was more like the smartest bloke there, realizing what you were before the rest of us."
"Is that why you danced with me for the first time that night?" Hermione asked, taking his hand again, her back to the glow of the dusting powder. "I didn't think you found me any more interesting than a garden gnome, but you walked up behind me and took my hand, walking backwards and shouting out an invitation to dance over the music. You, the best man, picking me. If you hadn't already been leading me to the dancefloor I would have thought you meant to be asking someone else."
Charlie breathed a laugh. "It was an old-fashioned dance, wasn't it? One of the tricky wizarding jigs we were raised on."
"Yes, but not me." Hermione bowed her head, laughing off a very old embarrassment. "I didn't know any of the steps, and even then I felt like the Delacours were sneering at me as they watched. So you told me to hang on tight, and then you all but carried me around the floor. You were so strong my feet hardly touched the ground…" Her voice trailed off, and she reached for his other hand, hooking her index finger through his, as if she was seventeen and still overwhelmed by his touch.
Charlie sighed, barely smiling. "Yes, before the night went mad and violent and you escaped hand-in-hand with my little brother, I got to hold the most wonderful woman at the wedding."
She was close now, her hands in his, her cheeks flushed, standing on tip-toe, waiting to be kissed in the light of the potion they'd created together.
Charlie looked at her mouth for a long moment, sighed again, and turned his profile to her. "Anyway, I'm dead glad the powder works. And I'm grateful to you for your help. If you hadn't figured out how to trigger the dissipation process, this stuff would have lingered like Muggle nuclear waste until the end of time."
Charlie's voice was fading into sadness again. Hermione sank back onto her heels, unkissed and fighting to be patient about it.
His shoulders rose and fell. "I'm glad I got to show you our successful potion while I still had the chance. Before I - tell you the rest."
Hang patience. Hermione slipped her arms beneath his, pressing her palms to his back, her fingertips finding the groove of his spine. She was verging on shameless, coming closer even as she felt him pulling away. "Enough, Charlie. Tell me what's happened."
He took another deep breath. "You've got to understand with perfect clarity that it was never me who meant to deceive you."
She blinked, the dragon detecting light nearly gone now. "Deceive me?"
He hung his head. "It was Mum and Dad. They tampered with the De-bliviator. It wasn't Death Eaters, it was them. Dad himself installed a Muggle on-off switch on it. And then Mum cast a concealment spell and jammed the switch in the off position with the broken tip of a knitting needle so it wouldn't work until she chose to unstick it herself. That's the reason it never lit up for you. It's got nothing to do with being Muggle-born. It was simply turned off."
She shook her head, stammering protests. "No. I saw it myself. It lit up for Arthur, and then it wouldn't for me."
"That was a trick," Charlie said, his head still hanging low. "It was a simple, wordless Lumos spell. Of course, you trusted Dad and didn't question it. But tonight George got the broken needle out and turned it on and your De-bliviator should work fine now, no matter what you're named. See for yourself."
From his pocket, Charlie produced the De-bliviator and pressed it into her palm. She held it between them where it pulsed red, like a tiny heart.
Hermione's mouth fell open, her face lit with the red glow. "It works? Just like that?"
"Yes."
"Molly and Arthur - they..." Her voice failed for a moment. All she could say was, "Why?"
Charlie shook his head as he closed her fingers over the device. "They meant well. It was a bizarre act of meddling love. These are Fred and George's parents, after all. They had an idea in their minds about what's best for you, and they stopped at nothing to get it for you. You've been like a daughter to them for so long and it gives them terrible pain that they didn't know to stop you from sending your parents away. It's one of their great regrets of the war, and that is saying something."
Yes, Hermione knew that bit. Molly had taken her in her arms and wept and told her she would do anything to give the Grangers back their daughter. This trick marriage was what that anything looked like.
"My parents…" Hermione couldn't say anything more, quietly slipping the De-bliviator back onto her wand, spinning it with her finger, seeing it flare red again, in perfect working order.
"Yes, you can go to them whenever you're ready," Charlie said. "You don't need me or anybody. The way my parents held you back all this time - it's unconscionable."
"So why did they do it?" she said, thinking aloud. "It was for you? To get you close to me?"
Charlie thrashed his head. "Yes. They've wanted me married for ages. That's no secret. That they wanted me to be married to you specifically – that was less obvious. But ever since Ron proved himself too thick to get you into their family himself, it's been a secret project of theirs. Lovely as you are, I never imagined it myself – "
She dropped her arms from around him, half-laughing, half-scoffing. "Nice one, Charlie."
"No, no," he said, snatching her hand and holding it in both of his. "I liked you. I always did, for years. And I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't also – fascinated."
"Fascinated?"
"You know. You were Ronnie's girl but – I did wonder what your skin would feel like beyond your sweet little hand in mine whenever we danced." At this he lifted her hand and kissed it. There was a fierceness in it, something like desperation that touched and surprised Hermione. She was silent as he went on.
"So Mum and Dad came up with this scheme to throw us together and make two of the flaws in their family life right in one go. They got me a wife, and they got you as a daughter. But it's not up to them. I stormed into the kitchen and confronted them about it as soon as George found the knitting needle tonight."
"Oh, Charlie - "
"No, I had to be strict with them. They were sorry I was upset at the deception and the delay they'd caused you, and they swore they were only going to give us a year to sort it out. If I hadn't fallen in love with you in that time, they were going to fix the De-bliviator and send you off to your parents no matter what."
He'd said it again, the phrase from the Scottish skating rink that had changed her heart, maybe forever. She said it out loud herself now. "Fall in love?" Hermione stood as if stupefied, Charlie still holding tightly to her hand in the dark forest.
He couldn't bear anymore, no more talking of falling in love as if it was neutral, accidental, out of their hands. He seized it himself, acting on it, closing his arms around her, lifting her onto her toes as he pulled her close, her eyes shining up at him in the moonlight filtered through the cold, leafless treetops.
He pressed another fierce kiss on her temple before his speech rushed out of him. "I can't condone what my parents did to you. But as for what they did to me, I'm not sorry they got me to come to London so I could stay in your home, in your bed. I'm not sorry I kissed you and made your happiness my own. I started as a paper husband but, yes, my parents have won. I've fallen in love with you. Completely. More profoundly than they ever hoped I could."
Hermione stood pressed so close to Charlie that he was all she could see. She breathed him in, her mind racing with his confessions.
They kept coming as he delivered the rest of the plan Harry and his brothers had helped him outline before he left the Burrow. "Nevermind what Mum and Dad want. Now that we know you don't have to keep me for the De-bliviator to work, you can decide for yourself what's next. As I see it, there are three options. One, I can go back to Romania, have all of this annulled, and let you go about your life without any further manipulation from any Weasleys, even me. I'll hate it, and I'll keep loving you for a very long time, but if an annulment is what you want, how could I blame you?"
She gasped, but he rushed on. "Two, I can get my own flat in London and win you properly, slowly, working my hardest to prove to you my mad family is worth the trouble and your forgiveness. I don't need any more convincing to stay with you, but I'll understand if you need more yourself. Or, there's option number - "
"Three!" Hermione shouted, her hands covering his mouth. "Hush, Charlie. There's no other choice for me. I pick option three, which is, you take me home to OUR flat this instant, and we stay together. No more interruptions, no broom closets, no more paper-only marriage. I pick you and me as Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, the way I've been dying for us to be together all this time."
There was a beat of silence before Charlie shouted a laugh, lifting Hermione far enough for her feet to come off the ground, kicking behind her. He spun them in a circle, still laughing.
She laughed along, smiling down at him as the spinning stopped. Her face was slightly above his for once as he held onto her. All of his sadness of the past few days was long gone from his expression, only happiness left. She swept his hair from his forehead before she kissed it with her soft, dewy lips. "You must know by now that I'm in love with you too, Charles Prewett Weasley. Deeply," she said, kissing one of his cheeks. "Desperately," she said, kissing the other one.
Charlie let her slide through his arms to stand on the ground, his laugh becoming a muffled, joyful sigh in her mouth. There was no one there to witness it, their first kiss after acknowledging one another as truly married, beyond paper or tin or even gems. They chose to let the marriage all the way into their souls.
As if the decision had a physical force, Hermione staggered, clinging to Charlie even as she reeled away from him. Charlie bowed over her, his hand in the small of her back, easily keeping her from bending backward any farther. His kiss grew more intense, more passionate than ever, urgent and open, with none of his feelings held back. Not any more.
He was elated enough that he would have been happy to take her to the forest floor, in the frost and twigs. But he righted their posture instead. This was a wedding night, a long awaited one, and though he wanted her, he wanted her safe and warm.
Hermione sighed as Charlie stood them up, linking her hands at the back of his neck. His mouth was hot and his hands were strong, exactly as she needed them. Her chest was burning, telling her she wanted him lying on her, the crush of his weight and strength holding her down. Yes, Charlie belonged to her, and all that remained between them to be sealed together was their bodies. They felt it in this kiss, in the blood storming through their veins, urging them toward each other.
It was impossible to say which of them had done it, maybe it was the determination of both of them at once, but the forest was twisting away and the warmth and the cocoa smell of Hermione's flat surrounded them once again. She was breathless and dizzy, still clamped to Charlie as they stumbled into her sofa, barely managing not to fall over onto it, though that would have suited her fine. Finding her feet again, Hermione stood pressed hard against him, still in their coats, her breath quick, eager, but not sure how best to begin.
Charlie began with relief, a firm kiss on her forehead as he scanned the flat. "Home. When we left, I wasn't sure you'd ever let me come back here."
Her natural reaction was to scoff, tucking her head beneath his chin. "That's because your keen research and observation skills don't extend to human behaviour somehow."
"What?"
"I mean, obviously," she laughed quietly, finally indulging herself in smoothing both of her hands up his chest and over his shoulders. "I've been openly lovesick over you for weeks and secretly infatuated for months. I can't imagine how everyone doesn't know."
Charlie wrinkled his nose. "That is sweet of you to say, and it also reminds me of a - situation. Have you seen today's paper?"
She hummed a no, burrowing her face between the lapels of his coat, into the front of his Christmas jumper. "Just the frontpage headlines," she murmured. "I didn't open it. Why? Do we really need to talk about it right now?"
Charlie sucked in his breath as her hands traced back down his chest, her fingers slipping inside his coat and beneath his jumper at his waist. "No, I don't suppose we do," he said as she walked her fingers inside his T-shirt, against his skin. "For now, I need that kiss you said I could have whenever and wherever."
"Did I say wherever?"
"Whatever."
She lifted her head from his chest so she could see his face, cocking her head to one side, humming, hooking her fingers into the belt loops at the back of his trousers, holding him close enough for his eyelids to lower to half closed and his throat to bob. It made her bolder, tantalizing. "A younger me would be happy to snog you here on this sofa until New Years. But the current me - well, she's more demanding."
Charlie grinned, his hands rising to her shoulders, slipping inside her coat to push both of her sleeves down her arms at once. Her heart crashed as her coat fell away beneath Charlie's hands, so forceful. This was not the usual way he helped her with her coat. This, at last, was seduction. She was no longer tantalizing him but slipping out of her shoes, barely holding herself back from climbing him.
"Demanding, is she?" his voice rumbled, taking off his own coat and pitching it toward the rack by the door. He was not embarrassed at all when he missed, his eyes never leaving her. From her head to her feet, he looked her over, slow and hungry. No more stolen glances, but open desire as he fanned his fingers and traced her silver chain from the nape of her neck, along her sternum, lower and lower.
Her heart rate climbed at his touch, giving her courage to ask a difficult question. "Was it Jelena's?" she blurted. "The amber. Did she give it back to you when she finished with you?"
Charlie's finger tracked over the gem. "No, my dear. I've only just set it in a necklace. You're not the only one of us with secret bedtime arts and crafts projects."
She let herself collapse into his chest. "Thank the stars."
He palmed the back of her head, holding her close. "Yes, Jelena never saw it. She might have, if I'd loved her anything like this. But I kept it private, and waited, and I never felt even a shred of this for her, or anyone else."
Hermione rose on her toes to kiss him, possessive, triumphant. Charlie's hand trailed from the necklace to her shoulder, down her arm to find her waist. She arched her back to come even closer, swaying to guide his hand beneath the hem of her jumper. His fingers grazed the warm, smooth skin of her sides and with a jolt, his kiss deepened again at the touch. She lost her breath and broke away from his mouth.
"So what was that about your current demands?" he said, his lips on her ear, calling her back from her dizzy desire even as he slid one arm elbow deep inside the back of her jumper.
She purred up at him. "They're nothing but the reasonable demands of a legal wife, deeply in love, with a marriage that's still unconsummated. It is far too late to satisfy me with only a snog," she said as he bent to kiss her neck, drawing her breath in with a sharp gasp. "No matter how breathtaking a kiss might be," she managed to continue, "I need more."
In a blur, Charlie swept her into his arms and strode past the door to the broom cupboard, all the way to the bedroom, almost incoherent, muttering about all he would give her as they went.
This kind of carrying - it was called a bridal carry. Hermione's fake wedding might not have had a cake or a dress, but this late honeymoon of hers was going to be real as anything, complete with the bridal carry. She was arriving at her marriage bed like a fairy tale bride in the arms of a doting, brilliant, beautiful groom delighted to have been tricked into marrying her.
As they went, she fit her face into the bend of his neck, her mouth insistent as she kissed his throat. How had she waited so long to put her mouth on it?
They'd come to the bed and Charlie laid her down so hastily she bounced back up at him as he lowered himself alongside her. She giggled at his reckless strength, clinging to him with her arms and legs, keeping him close. Charlie rolled onto his back, bringing her on top of himself, her legs bent on either side of him.
She dived at his throat again, still ravenous to explore it. She nipped and licked as Charlie gripped her thighs, his hands descending from her hips to the crooks of her knees and back again. A breathy moan escaped her, and she matched his drive, her hands reaching for the lower edge of his jumper and shirt, stronger and bolder now as they pulled all of it over his head.
Tossing it clear, she sat up on his stomach, her mouth slightly agape as she looked at him. From a few glimpses, and years of touching him innocently and not-so innocently through his clothes, she'd suspected it already, but now it was confirmed. Physically, Charlie was like the very best of Viktor Krum and Ronald Weasley merged together into the fantasy of her perfect partner, made just for her. Only he wasn't a fantasy. Charlie was real and alive, warm and breathing beneath her, waiting.
"By the stars, Charlie, you're much more - "
He pulled her down, flipping their positions, rolling her onto her back again. "Don't say it, love. Don't compare me to anyone," he said, his face pushing her collar aside, exposing her shoulder, ravishing it as he scolded. "Right now, think of no one but us."
She tipped her head as he kissed her. He was heavy, perfectly so, and she hummed her satisfaction with his downward pressure all along her body. "Yes there is no one but my husband and me."
But Charlie was suddenly distracted himself, groping at something caught beneath her. "What is this? It's keeping me from lying you down properly," he muttered, fighting to stay focused on his task as Hermione set about mouthing every freckle on his shoulders and chest. Through his shivers he burrowed a hand beneath them and pulled out the long, fat, blue pillow that had been a barrier between them all through the previous night.
Hermione turned her head to see what he'd found, laughing when she recognized it.
"No more of THAT," he said, and threw the barrier pillow as hard as he could against the bedroom wall.
He propped himself on his elbows, looking into her face from above as her laughter quieted into a smile. "My wife," he said.
She brushed her nose against his. "Your wife loves you," she said. "So much."
"So much," he echoed, something flashing through his eyes, the edge of happiness that is desire.
He was kissing her mouth, consuming. She hurled herself into it, her hands flat and open on his broad, bare back, his hands inside her clothes now. Her eyes closed and she set their banter aside, giving way to the purest, most honest and primal part of herself. Along with her heart and mind, that self belonged to Charlie too. It arched and opened, embracing what she wanted most, what she already possessed and only needed to claim. That was him, Charlie, all of him.